If Americans are united in anything, it’s in their desire for free stuff. You can’t go two pages in the computer section of Yahoo! Answers without seeing someone ask how they can get so-and-so “totally free” and/or “without downloading anything.” (This latter usually brands the asker as a kid who doesn’t have admin privileges on the family desktop.) Politicians, not surprisingly, have built entire empires out of concealing the price of “free” stuff.

Now comes word that Facebook is using your precious personal information for, OMG, commercial purposes. You or I will probably react this way: “Well, duh.” For the rest of the world, Tam has the proper response:

What did you think was going to pay for this futuristic new way to stay in touch with your friends and family, to keep everyone you know updated on your every meal and movie and micturition? Did you think some kind philanthropist had donated the code and the server space and the bandwidth out of the kindness of his heart?

Wait ’til they find out that should they micturate on a rug in this fair city, they must pay compensation.

Under a proposed German law, employers, while permitted to check out job-networking sites for new hires, would be barred from reviewing their Facebook pages:

The bill would allow managers to search for publicly accessible information about prospective employees on the Web and to view their pages on job networking sites, like LinkedIn or Xing. But it would draw the line at purely social networking sites like Facebook.

It’s not like the Germans have suddenly discovered privacy, either:

Concerns have been heightened in recent years by scandals involving companies’ secret videotaping of employees, as well as intercepting their e-mail and bank data. The explosion of Web-based information tools has added to the unease.

The German authorities are investigating Google for having collected private Internet information while doing research for its Street View mapping service, and they have asked Apple to explain its data-collection policies for the iPhone.

Researcher danah boyd is pleased by this development:

I’m delighted by the German move, if for no other reason than to highlight that we need to rethink our regulatory approaches. I strongly believe that we need to spend more time talking about how information is being used and less time talking about how stupid people are for sharing it in the first place.

It should be noted that trolling Facebook for information in this way could be considered a violation of Facebook’s EULA, though the likelihood that Catbert will be busted for it seems fairly low.

An item from Playboy’s “Raw Data,” September:

According to law firms specializing in divorce, about twenty percent of divorce petitions make some reference to evidence of spousal misbehavior on Facebook.

Dear God, I hope it isn’t on FarmVille.

Because it gets cold awfully damn fast? Well, there’s that, but this is a bit more germane:

There’s no question Facebook should have acted much sooner than it did. In case anyone who works for Facebook is reading this, let me clarify that by “act” I mean “act to address users’ privacy concerns, not act to spam our privacy all over the universe.” That said, I see merit to saying less now about what they might do now, and coming back with a much better product then. Talk about what you will do never carries much weight. Talk about what you have done, does. Take the Domino’s example. Does anyone seriously think it would have been a wise move for them to have publicly admitted a year ago that their pizza tasted like crap, and that they would be designing a new kind of pizza Real Soon Now, but won’t we please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top keep buying the old crap in the meantime? Or was it better to do what they did, and keep their new design under wraps until they actually had a better product to deliver?

First person who says “Thirty FarmVille updates, or it’s free” will justify that new theoretical “Dislike” button.

Facebook, like every social-networking site with more than one user, has its quirks, but none, I think, weirder than this:

[P]erhaps the digital equivalent of a public bulletin board isn’t the best place to offer condolences?

Imagine writing a note saying that you were sorry a friend got dumped, and then pinning it to the bulletin board in a main hallway on your college campus, for example.

The results are about as disquieting as you’d think they are:

“The worst thing, though, wasn’t the comments,” she said. “It was when I saw that someone had clicked ‘like’.”

“Someone clicked on ‘like’? Why would they do that?”

“Someone clicked on like. I have no idea.”

Note to Facebook: Instead of looking for new and improved ways to sell us to advertisers, how about adding a Commiserate link?

Facebook thinks it would be a really swell idea for us to be friends, and by “us” they mean “me” and “my ex’s current husband.”

Not that I have anything against the guy — he’s way better suited to her than I ever was — but FB really needs a “Oh, hell no” button on some of these options.

I’ve kept it off the front page up until now, but individual posts now have the infamous Facebook “Share” function activated. Not that I expect anyone to post any of this stuff to Facebook, but the least I can do is simplify the task on the off-chance that someone might want to.

All the posts, at the moment, are automagically posted to Twitter; I am not considering doing the same for Facebook.

“The number of status updates a member makes on Facebook is inversely proportional to that person’s actual status.”

Which, if I do the math, gives me major, perhaps near-infinite clout, since I have essentially no presence on Facebook: I get the occasional link from FB now and then, but since I have no FB account, I don’t get to track it down. I mention that linkage because otherwise it looks like I’m dividing by zero.

On the other hand, if this principle is extensible to Twitter — and why shouldn’t it be? — I am so screwed.

(Pilfered from snoburbia.)

You may already have your very own stalkers followers:

[T]here were a few people whose Twitter pages, if existent, I would check obsessively. Who am I talking about? I’m referring to those very-not-ugly guys whose names are scrawled all over random papers on my desk. The ones who I daydream about instead of being productive.

Sound creepy and stalker-esque? Probably because it is. And it seems that the only reason anyone would want to know what a specific person was doing at every hour of every day is if they are a creepy stalker who is obsessed with you or really really desperate.

Now I’ve had my fair share of people telling me how dangerous having a Facebook page is and I’ve gotten plenty of stories about random men who stalk women’s Facebook pages. I could care less. My profile is set on private and I don’t add creepers. I think I’ll live. But despite my annoyance at all this stalker preaching, I can’t help but think that Twitter is probably the home page of every stalker in America.

I figure anyone obsessed with me is “really really desperate” by definition, but I’m reasonably certain that no one meeting that description is among my 160 or so Twitter followers, not counting the 50 or so I blocked for reasons of suspected spammage.

Fort Hard Knox reports that T-town is holding a Tea Party on Friday, the 27th.

The Facebook-centric nature of these things seems to have bothered some people, but as FHK’s Jenn Sierra notes:

[M]y parents, who are in their late 70′s, and don’t even have a computer are planning to attend this thing, and will probably be bringing friends. If anyone is seriously using the fact that, “I don’t feel comfortable with Facebook,” for an excuse … well, they just really need help I’m not qualified to give.

Hmmm.

Addendum: An Oklahoma City party has been organized.

Including, says this guy, Facebook:

Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims.

Emailing people rather than meeting up with them may have wide-ranging biological effects, said psychologist Dr Aric Sigman.

Increased isolation could alter the way genes work and upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries. It could also impair mental performance.

This could increase the risk of problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia, Dr Sigman says in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology.

On the other hand, increased isolation means you’re less likely to inflict your freaking rhinovirus on the rest of the world. To me, it’s a wash.

(Via white pebble.)

I hadn’t noticed, but it’s true: the city of Oklahoma City is now using Twitter for various municipal updates and such.

They’re also on Facebook, which means I may have to bite the bullet just to stay on top of things, and by “on top” I mean “at least better than two months behind, like I was on this.”

Here’s a Facebook command I hadn’t seen, but which Donna seems to have discovered:

Note to MySpace: Go thou and code likewise.

Burger King’s Angry Whopper was only the beginning:

As many companies are now doing, they’ve tapped into Facebook and created an application to help promote it. But this Facebook application is a bit … different. Instead of encouraging you to join a group, find new friends, or spread the word, Burger King’s new Whopper Sacrifice Application is offering you a free Whopper if you DE-FRIEND 10 people from your friend list.

What’s more, each of the ex-friends will receive a certification to this effect from BK.

The competition is reportedly working on a more personal dis, tentatively named “McArsenic.”

(Via Mollie Hemingway.)

If not, somebody will find a way:

A court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook, a popular social networking Web site, to notify a couple that they lost their home after defaulting on a loan.

The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court last Friday approved lawyer Mark McCormack’s application to use Facebook to serve the legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact the couple at the house and by e-mail.

Although it’s not exactly foolproof just yet:

McCormack, a lawyer for the lender the couple borrowed from, said that by the time he got the documents approved by the court late Tuesday for transmission, Facebook profiles for the couple had disappeared from public view.

The page was apparently either closed or secured for privacy, following publicity about the court order.

All of which makes me wonder: is this next?

Hell, some collection agency could really attract publicity by setting up a Second Life outpost, and start serving papers avatar-to-avatar! (With a corresponding uptick in virtual homicides, no doubt.) It would be ideal for some sector or region known to be disposed toward long hours of online interaction — IT worker, tech hubs like Seattle or Northern California, etc.

I suggest that said agency not try this on World of Warcraft, where the penalties for unwanted intrusion can be severe.